The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (71 page)

At a few minutes past five Josie hauled herself to her feet and everyone gathered around to sing happy birthday. When she blew out the candles on the cake—coconut with lemon filling, her favorite—the clapping was as enthusiastic as if there had been ninety instead of nine, one for each decade. Then the cake was cut and passed around. Claire noticed that Maddie had fallen asleep on the lap of a plump blond woman, the mother of two young boys who hadn’t been able to get enough of the darling little girl in her frilly pink dress. She gently scooped Maddie up and carried her upstairs to her room.

When she came back, the crowd had begun to thin out. Kitty emerged from the kitchen with a gift for Josie: a tool box containing a hammer, nails, several screwdrivers, a bottle of glue, and a can of WD-40. The old woman, diligent to the point of obsessive about pointing out every rusty hinge, wobbly table leg, and peeling section of wallpaper, enjoyed a good laugh at her own expense.

“Which reminds me”—she said as she was being half carried out the door, supported at each elbow by a pair of middle-aged men who’d probably looked nothing alike as students but who now sported matching paunches and bald crowns—“I noticed a crack in one of your plates.”

After everyone had gone, Claire enjoyed a quiet moment alone with Kitty while Willa and the girls washed up. She looked about the airy front room with its mismatched tables and chairs and its eyelet lace curtains through which the last of the sunlight sifted, casting hazy patterns over the floor below.

“I can’t remember when my feet ached this much,” she complained good-naturedly. Kitty opened her mouth, no doubt to thank her yet again, but Claire preempted her, saying, “It’s good to be back. I’ve missed this.”

“What’s to miss?” Kitty said with a laugh. “You’re over here practically every other day.”

“The only difference is I’m not getting paid for it,” Claire joked.

“Only because you won’t
let
me.”

“Consider it a labor of love.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Kitty shook her head, nibbling on a leftover cookie. “You make more money in an hour than I do in a day. Why on earth would you rather be
here
?”

“Look who’s talking.”

“All right. You’ve got me there.” Kitty hiked her feet onto a chair. For a moment she appeared lost in thought, perhaps remembering when she’d been a teacher like Josie. “I don’t know what it is—maybe I like feeling needed.”

Claire couldn’t have said it better. Tea & Sympathy, she thought, was as much food for the soul. People came to exchange ideas along with the latest gossip, to kick around business propositions and play chess—but mostly just to be where someone was always glad to see them and where they were welcome to stay as long as they liked.

“Maybe you need this place as much as it needs you.” Claire realized as soon as the words were out that they said as much about her as they did about Kitty.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” Kitty’s eyes crinkled. “Plates aren’t the only thing cracked around here.”

“I mean what I said before—I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

Kitty looked as if she’d given it some thought since then. “In that case, what about our going into business together?”

“What about it?”

“I was just thinking …” One of the cats leaped onto Kitty’s lap, and she stroked it idly. “What if I were to open a branch of Tea & Sympathy? We’d be partners, only you’d be in charge of the day-to-day operation.”

It was as if Kitty had read her mind. Claire’s pulse quickened. “It would have to be somewhere outside of Miramonte, where you wouldn’t be in competition with yourself.”

The little house in Carson Springs with “loads of potential,” in the words of Matt Woodruff, popped into her head. She hadn’t dared dwell on it at the time— what would have been the point?—but now her mind raced, ahead, filled with possibilities.

Then reality stepped in, bringing her to a rude halt. “There’s just one little thing.”

“What?”

“Money.”

“True.” Every extra cent Kitty made went into Maddie’s college fund. “But there has to be a bank that’d give us a loan.”

“I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but your only collateral is this house, which is mortgaged to the hilt.” She’d drawn up Kitty’s will, so she knew exactly where her friend stood. “As for me, I’d have better luck robbing a bank than borrowing from one.”

“What about tapping some of your wealthy clients? It’d be a great investment opportunity.”

“Sure, and maybe while I’m at it I could show them a nice swamp in Florida.” A familiar heaviness was settling in—the sense of hopelessness that always followed such flights of fancy.

“I just thought of something.” Kitty brought her feet to the floor with a thump, causing the cat to leap from her lap with a look of reproach. “My sister Alex. I loaned her some money a few years back. I wasn’t expecting to be repaid any time soon, but she just landed a big commission on a house she sold. She’s giving me half, so that’s twenty grand right there. If we could scare up another twenty or so—”

“This is insane, you know that, don’t you?” Claire broke in.

“Not half as insane as
not
doing it.” Kitty’s blue eyes sparked with challenge.

For a delicious stolen moment Claire allowed herself to imagine it: her very own Tea & Sympathy. Her heart soared—then just as quickly plummeted. It was nothing short of madness. For one thing, she’d never hear the end of it from Lou and Millie. And what about Byron? They’d been counting on her income for when they were married.

Sean clomped in from outside just then. He was several weeks into a big job for the city trimming the elms along Cypress, and looked it: deeply tanned, his T-shirt and jeans smudged with tar, and a sprinkling of sawdust in his spiky black hair.

“Hold it right there.” Kitty put out a hand, stopping him at the threshold. “Boots and socks,” she ordered, waiting while he pried off his tar-stained Redwings. A small pile of sawdust appeared on the mat as he peeled off his socks. “Okay, now the rest.” She was grinning as she spoke.

Sean pretended to take her seriously, going so far as to unbuckle his belt before Kitty dashed over to throw her arms around him, mindless of the tar on his jeans. Claire couldn’t help envying them a little. But why? She had Byron, didn’t she?

But it wasn’t Byron she was thinking of now. Maybe it was the smell of sawdust, but she found herself remembering Matt Woodruff. She pictured him walking from room to room, his boots leaving faint waffled treads on the hardwood floor, the muscles in his broad back straining the faded fabric of his shirt. When it occurred to her that the house might already be sold, she felt a sudden and entirely unreasonable pang of loss.

It would be perfect, she thought. Smaller than this one and all on one level, but with a large kitchen and a garage that could be converted. And Matt had mentioned that it was zoned for commercial use.

All at once her excitement was doused by a cold dash of reason. What would it do to her parents if she moved to Carson Springs? And what would Gerry think? They’d all assume the reason she was taking such a drastic step was to get to know her family—and they’d be partly right. For over the past few weeks she’d felt something gathering in the back of her mind, nothing as definite as a decision, only the growing certainty that a change was coming, a change like warm winds blowing from the south that, if she positioned herself just right, would send her sailing off into exciting new territory. If she didn’t grab hold of this opportunity, even at the risk of hurting her parents, she knew she’d spend the rest of her life regretting it.

T
HE RUTTED DIRT LANE
dipped like the grooved handle of a spoon to the meadow below. Walking down it, all you saw at first was an unbroken sweep of grass bordered by wild blackberries and eucalyptus at one end and a long corrugated shed at the other. It wasn’t until you drew nearer that you saw the rows of evenly spaced hives, like a subdivision of miniature ticky-tacky white houses, tucked in among the trees.

It all looked so pastoral, but as Gerry strolled among the hives with Sister Carmela at her side, she reflected, as she often did, on the delicate thread by which their little cottage industry hung. A tiny parasite, an invasion of wild bees, even the premature death of a queen could decimate an entire colony. If enough were affected, production slowed and the honey yield dropped: like the year an infestation of foulbrood had nearly wiped out the entire apiary.

“It’s not every colony, not yet, at least.” Sister Carmela, as short and thick as Gerry was tall and shapely, stumped along the path, hands horned with calluses clasped behind her back. “We’re dosing them with fumagillin and it seems to be doing the trick, but we’ll have a better idea in a week or two. I’m hopeful.” Her flat tone and the deep lines creasing the worn leather of her face suggested otherwise.

Gerry didn’t have to be told how serious an infestation of
Nosema
was. If it wasn’t eradicated in time, the annual cleansing flight would be marked by bees crawling over the ground instead of making their springtime forays into the field.

“How many do we stand to lose?” she asked.

They paused in front of a partially dismantled hive. Its lid and shallow super had been removed, leaving only the two deep brood chambers. The ground around the hive entrance was scattered with what at first glance appeared to be blossoms from the trees overhead, but which on closer inspection Gerry recognized as dozens of dead bees.

Sister Carmela shook her head mournfully. “Nothing worth saving here.” It would be burned along with the other badly infested hives. She continued along the path, stopping to pry the lid off another hive, lifting the heavy super as easily as if it had been the lid of a Styrofoam cooler. Mindless of the bees—her skin was so tough from the years of working outdoors she no longer needed the cumbersome protective gear—she reached inside to extract a frame from the brood chamber. The bees were sluggish from winter, but looked healthy enough. Satisfied, she replaced it. “If we’re lucky, we won’t lose more than a few.”

“Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

“I’ve done more than that. I’ve asked Father Reardon to say a special mass.”

Gerry looked for a sign that she was being facetious, but the older nun’s creased brown face was solemn. As far as Sister Carmela was concerned, it was no different than offering up prayers for a sick parishioner or family member who’d fallen ill.

“It couldn’t hurt,” she said.

Something flared in the nun’s gentle brown eyes. “Oh, I know what they say about me: All Sister Carmela cares about is those bees. But they’re God’s creatures the same as you and me.”

Gerry happened to agree, though Sister Carmela took it to extremes at times, extolling their virtues to anyone who would listen, about how bees were a model society, every member of the colony with a job to do and everything in its proper place. Rather like the convent, she thought. She slipped a comforting arm about her old friend’s shoulders. “If people were as well behaved the world would be in a lot better shape.”

She looked out over the meadow, where a few of the bees from hives with sunnier exposures were already making forays, bobbing drunkenly amid the goldenrod and timothy grass. She loved the whole concept of the cleansing flight, like spring-cleaning in a way: the bees removing those that had died over the winter, along with bits of wax and debris.

In a way, hadn’t she done the same? Decades of old regrets and wishful thinking had been swept away. Her daughter had a name and a face. She knew the color of her eyes and the sound of her laughter. She could close her eyes and see Claire at the kitchen table, in the extra chair at the end. If that memory was all God saw fit to bless her with, well, she’d just have to find a way to live with it.

Her heart ached nonetheless. Here it was March—six weeks since Claire had visited—with only the one stilted thank-you note. Her hopes had been raised when she heard from Kevin that Claire had been to see him. But he’d advised her to keep a low profile for now, saying that while Claire had seemed genuinely interested in getting to know them, her first loyalty was to her parents.

“Those people did a real number on her.” She could hear the disgust in his voice.

“What did she tell you about them?”

“Nothing much—just the impression I got. You know that expression about loving someone to death? Well, with her folks it’s literal.”

“I got the same impression.”

“The last thing she needs is another guilt trip.”

Gerry could certainly relate to that. Hadn’t she gotten a good dose from her own mother growing up? Not to mention the Church, which had had thousands of years of practice at it. “Do you think I’ll ever hear from her again?”

“Hard to say, but my guess is yes.”

Gerry’s heart had leaped. “You don’t sound too sure.”

“She’s been to see Gallagher.” Kevin’s voice hardened. “Apparently he denied the whole thing. Now she’s more confused than ever.”

She’d known this was coming, of course, but it caught her by surprise even so, nearly knocking the wind from her. She felt the old anger surface. “Oh, God, poor Claire.”

“It’s not Claire I’m worried about—it’s
him.
”

“What do you mean?”

“Just be on your guard, that’s all,” Kevin warned.

“Against what?”

“I don’t know, but something tells me we haven’t seen the last of him.”

Now, as she wandered along the shady path, Gerry wondered if her brother was right. She didn’t expect to hear from Jim—hadn’t he made it plain he wanted nothing to do with either her or Claire?—but that didn’t mean the ripple effect from Claire’s visit wouldn’t be felt. She’d best keep an eye out for trouble just in case.

When they’d finished inspecting the hives, she and Sister Carmela headed back to the honey house, where another kind of spring-cleaning was under way. Decapping tanks, extractors, strainers, and centrifuges were being scrubbed down in preparation for the combs that would soon be ready to harvest. Even Sister Paul, their resident biochemist, had gotten into the act, giving her cluttered laboratory in back—the birthplace of Blessed Bee’s brand-new line of hand creams and moisturizers—a thorough cleaning.